Montana Climber: 2014

Eric, Mark and I decided to head out to Avalanche Lake in the Madison range for the Fourth of July weekend and attempt to summit Mount Hilgard, which is the tallest summit in Montana outside of the Beartooth mountain range.

Here's the crew, Manfred, myself, Mark, and Eric. Due in part to our ultra disciplined back country lifestyles and getting held up by the 4th parade that annually shuts down the entire town of Ennis and the highway that runs through it, we didn't get on the trail until a little after 1:30 pm. I should have thought about the parade as my grandparents live in Ennis and I have been going to it regularly for many years. After driving around the lake we proceeded to the trail head.

This is my Mystery Ranch Terraplane 100 That I made for myself. I love it, it is probably more bag than what most people need, but I can carry whatever I want to with it and it is super comfortable. I have transported a guitar with this bag. To make the bag unique I stitched "This one's for Bill Brasky" on the back pocket. If you don't know who Bill Brasky is here is a helpful link: http://www.hulu.com/watch/69478

This is a nice waterfall that we stopped to rest at. The hike on was never super steep but it was sustained for a solid five miles.

Finally, Avalanche Lake!

There was snow on the ground but the July 4th weather wasn't cold. Our afternoon hike in was pretty warm. The trail up has significant wash outs for a mile or two which made following the route interesting. When you eventually cross the large creek you can see why, fast moving water over steep, gravely terrain.

This is the wall on the other side of avalanche lake where we camped, it's probably a choss pile.

After we arrived and set up camp a rain storm moved in and started throwing the light around.

Hallelujah!

The lake is teaming with fish.

Alpine lake environments never cease to enchant me.

It didn't rain hard enough for me to put my boots back on.

It felt so good to be done hiking that the inclement weather didn't bother us too much.

We ended up getting a fair bit of rain but it was alright because the weather for the summit hike the next day was beautiful!

We hiked north from the avalanche lake cirque over the ridge in front of us and into the Hilgard cirque.

Here is the view from the top of the first ridge.

There were lots of tarns, some still with ice chunks.

After some deliberation on top of the first ridge we were finally able to identify mount Hilgard (pictured here) and plan a route to the base. We realized that we had to drop down into the Hilgard cirque, cross it, and then go up the other side.

The Hilgard cirque looked like a back country skier's paradise, it's just a long way back there.

This adventure was brought to you in part by the Mystery Ranch employee personal project program, thanks Dana and Renee!

This is the main hikers approach to the summit of Hilgard. To a really experienced alpinist it is probably pretty mellow. As for myself it was one of the most difficult/intimidating things that I have ever climbed without roping up. I'm glad we didn't use ropes, as it would have made the descent that much more scary and dramatic, and time consuming.

We made it to the top! It's a bit like being on top of the highest tower of a big castle up there. We hung out in the wind for a minute and then made the joyous return trip. The adventure was just barely half over.

This was the hairy section, it was a bit more exposed than the photo lets on, hands and feet required!

My trusty summit pack is the lid to my Terraplane and then has shoulder pads that allow it to convert into a back pack itself. It was a lot of fun to use it as a lid to get all my stuff to and from the car and base camp and then use it as a lightweight pack to get to the summit of Hilgard.

The far side of Mount Hilgard from our approach involved a super steep and an exposed mountain side that possibly contains technical big wall routes.

This down hill slope was too good to pass up, we had to go for a snow slide.

Mark, choosing a vessel and preparing for the down hill voyage.

The Gnar, about to get shredded. For a moment we contemplate the great expanse of land about to be crossed. (Notice the tower in the middle of the photo?)